Riven, your trunk curlsaround a dark hollow--somewhere to take shelterto share with youdreams olderthan all the timewe can remember.For you, we are buta brief flicker,a blink so recentwe sound but one short notein your long symphony,the one you are still writing--each word a layerof new wood, each breatha leaf, reaching for light.The great cave of your trunkstands as signature to a bargainstruck years ago--refusing a simple deathbroken openknotted and scarred,yet still returning,bud and branch, alive,each season a phrasein your ancient conversationwith stone and sunand the subtle whisperof light from distant stars.

The earth’s forgotten when someone planted acorns herein two straight lines, anticipating shade, a bed of soft black soil beneath the leaves where travelers could rest, a place for larks to nest and falcons to scan the winter skies for prey. In summer, overhanging leavesand branches form a canopy. The trunks still stand alone,two separate line of treesjust as they always were. Below, their white roots mingle,less a group than one expressionof the urge to grow, a single being.